"Wal-Mart" churches spring up in rural areas

Oh the joys of rural ministry!

Top 5 in 2004

Here's a list of the top blogposts in 2004. Have fun surfing and reading.

Bose Personalized Amplification System - Amplifiers and Sound Systems for Musicians

So why haven't I been writing lately? One of my church's recently bought this great system! It is awesome! The sound is unbelievable and so simple to achieve!

This is the perfect system for small to average size churches looking to get great sound and simple operation at a great price!

Out in the sticks is one year old!

My blog is now one year old! It is amazing to think about how life has changed in that time. A new laptop computer, wifi hotspot in Wray, wifi at work...and even with all the new accessibility I haven't posted in 8 days or so!

In the coming year I hope to write more. We'll see if I am able to do that.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

I'm loaded

How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 433,272,059 richest person on earth!

And that doesn't even include my non-monetary riches!

Nomo Pomo

I'm fully prepared to admit that when we boomers were young, we faddishly embraced church-growth ratios and sociological analysis; we praised these modern tools as the salvation of the church. So it's poetic justice for us now to sit in the back of the room, the balding and befuddled, as the next generation praises the postmodern matrix as the salvation of the church.

But we're both wrong. We've already got a salvation for the church, and he will not share his glory with any current cultural form, no matter how valuable or necessary it may be. If the church uncritically embraced modern culture, the solution is not to uncritically embrace postmodern culture.

Good advice to keep in mind on any new thinking or technique in the church!

next-wave > church & culture: American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon...A Review by Tim Berroth

What follows in Prothero's book is a systematic analysis of how Jesus has become a modern day version of the Greek god Proteus, conveniently morphing and changing into whatever image is created for him.

This sounds like a very interesting book. I hope to pick it up soon. Here's another quote which reminds me of the 'Dirty Harry' piece I linked to a while back:

The natural response to this softer effeminate Jesus was a push for a more masculine Jesus. Christianity was viewed, for the most part, as a religion for women. In the late 19th-century, church membership was only 28 percent male. By 1910, U.S. churches were only one-third male. In The Virility of Christ , published in 1915, author Warren Conant protested against artists who "subjoin a silky, curly beard to a woman's face and hair and label it 'The Christ'" Instead he offered a vision of a "Fighting Christ" with "big lung capacity" and the "free swinging stride of the mountaineer." Men of the industrial age would "demand a strenuous Christ." Prothero's examination of this battle for the male/female Christ is fascinating in light of the church's continuing struggle and failure to proclaim the distinctly masculine God revealed in the scriptures. In the wake of the radical feminism of the 1960's and 70's the church is still scrambling to figure out how to define roles of the sexes and how to faithfully proclaim God as a male.

Wireless hotspot in Wray

Here I am sitting in the greatest coffee shop in Yuma County Colorado and now it's even better because it is now equipped with a wi-fi hotspot!

And wouldn't you know it, it is the same week I get my own wifi at the church! Wow, no more wires and much faster internet experience!

By the way, this is the same coffee shop which we have had our alt worship service Echo at, Canyon Cafe and Coffee. If you're ever in Wray, Colorado look me up and I'll treat you to coffee and wifi!

ChristianToday > New Handbook to Promote and Sustain Christian Presence in Rural Areas

I'd love to read this handbook. Hope the Methodist church will make it available online.

The Death Clock - When Am I Going To Die?

When will you die? Check out the internet's friendly reminder that time is slipping away!

For me, January 7, 2041.

How God fooled Satan at Christmas

Very interesting take on the Christmas story.

Denver Journal - 7:0302 - A Generous Orthodoxy review

This is from a review of McLaren's new book Generous Orthodoxy by Craig Blomberg:

But overall, I am far more enthusiastic about this volume than worried over it. What worries me are the growing numbers of people who are worried about it. What does this portend if not an ungenerous orthodoxy that draws ever-narrowing boundaries around what counts as authentic Christianity, thereby alienating even more onlookers from the very faith they already see as too judgmental and divisive? I recommend McLaren's work highly to anyone who cares about evangelizing postmoderns and about developing the kind of community in the church of Jesus Christ that our Lord himself seems to have desired.

I have been wanting to get a copy of this book for some time. Now I am really wanting to read it!

As a graduate of Denver Seminary and former student of Dr. Blomberg's I have great respect and admiration for his thoughts and opinions.

The Emergent matrix: A new kind of church?

While emerging churches talk a lot about being relevant to postmodern culture, they are also aware that there is a danger in relevance. Lauren Winner, author of Girl Meets God, posed the question this way at the convention: “How do you simultaneously attend to the culture and be a pocket of resistance? You can’t be a pocket of resistance without attending . . . but I still think people come to church when church is different from the world, when there is something noticeably ecclesial in the broadest sense, when church seems like church rather than a shopping mall.”

An Emergent definition of relevance, modulated by resistance, might run something like this: relevance means listening before speaking; relevance means interpreting the culture to itself by noting the ways in which certain cultural productions gesture toward a transcendent grace and beauty; relevance means being ready to give an account for the hope that we have and being in places where someone might actually ask; relevance means believing that we might learn something from those who are most unlike us; relevance means not so much translating the church’s language to the culture as translating the culture’s language back to the church; relevance means making theological sense of the depth that people discover in the oddest places of ordinary living and then using that experience to draw them to the source of that depth (Augustine seems to imply such a move in his reflections on beauty and transience in his Confessions). Relevance might simply mean wanting to understand why so many young people have said that attending U2’s Elevation Tour and hearing Bono close the show with choruses of “Hallelujah” was like being in worship (but a whole lot better).

I am currently wrestling with these thoughts. I sense that I agree with much of it.

I feel I am growing more and more tired of the emerging church "conversation". It has reached both Christian Century and Christianity Today.

It's hip and trendy. This I believe is what the masses experience and believe the "conversation" to be.

But those who started the conversation are seeking much more. Much of what they write and speak of resonates with me at some levels and on some points. Yet I feel a certain skepticism toward the conversation/movement.

What about you?

MSNBC - Religion: The Birth of Jesus

A NEWSWEEK Poll found that 84 percent of American adults consider themselves Christians, and 82 percent see Jesus as God or the son of God. Seventy-nine percent say they believe in the virgin birth, and 67 percent think the Christmas story—from the angels' appearance to the Star of Bethlehem—is historically accurate.

So what do you think?

A Perfect Brainstorm

Interesting article on brainstorming.

New Rescue Truck

Here's our town's brand new rescue truck for the volunteer fire department.

Denver Journal - 3:0103 - Text & Experience: Towards a Cultural Exegesis of the Bible

Lastly, one who desires to do contextualized biblical work must also think through the meaning of the nature of the inspiration of the text.... A host of thorny theoretical matters come to the fore, and confessional commitments become an inescapable factor to consider in this contextualizing enterprise.

More thoughts on contextualization from Dr. Danny Carroll from Denver Seminary. This quote is from a review of the book Text & Experience: Towards a Cultural Exegesis of the Bible.

Can a Christian deny the virgin birth?

More contemporary attacks on the virgin birth of Christ have emerged from figures such as retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong and German New Testament scholar Gerd Luedemann. Luedemann acknowledges that 'most Christians in all the churches in the world confess as they recite the Apostles' Creed that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. Now ... modern Christians completely discount the historicity of the virgin birth and understand it in a figurative sense.'

Obviously, the 'modern Christians' Luedemann identifies are those who allow the modern secular worldview to establish the frame for reality into which the claims of the Bible must be fitted. Those doctrines that do not fit easily within the secular frame automatically must be discarded. As might be expected, Luedemann's denial of biblical truth is not limited to the virgin birth. He denies virtually everything the Bible reveals about Jesus Christ. In summarizing his argument, Luedemann states: 'The tomb was full and the manger empty.' That is to say, Luedemann believes that Jesus was not born of a virgin and that he was not raised from the dead.

I find it fascinating as a pastor how in a quest to make Christianity more appealing to the masses, many have essentially destroyed the Christian message.

The gospel must be contextualized. But must the gospel be denied in order to be presented in a particular context?

If you are working to contextualize the gospel in a naturalist context, some theologians and pastors do not seek to challenge the basic worldview of naturalism. Rather they seek to understand the gospel in light of naturalism, seeking scientific and natural causes for the accounts in Scripture.

But is this really contextualization? Contextualization is to present an idea in a particular context. So to present the virgin birth idea in a naturalist context is to challenge the very worldview of the naturalist.

Ultimately the naturalist must decide to accept the supernatural as an explanation for the virgin birth or they must deny the virgin birth and remain committed to their worldview.

Hmmm...to change your mind and realize that your worldview is incorrect...doesn't that sound like repentance?

And isn't that the message of the gospel? Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!

The "evangelical uniform" versus real piety from PreachingNow

In the second part of his article on "The Future of Expository Preaching," Bryan Chapell says, "How we will apply Scripture to our present situation in order to be salt and light remains a hot topic in adult Sunday Schools but a great void in the homiletics literature. Once application was easy. Everyone knew the uniform that Evangelicals were supposed to wear: do not smoke or drink or chew; don't see bad movies; and don't cuss when the preacher's around. Virtually any biblical text could be exegeted to add threads to this uniform of Evangelical/Fundamentalist identification.

"Of course, for reasons both good and bad, that uniform is now largely considered out of fashion. Survey after survey tells us that the life patterns of Evangelicals on matters as varied as marriage, entertainment, alcohol and drug use, abortion and charitable giving vary little from the secular culture. The individualism that we were inadvertently promoting by emphasizing faith as a path to personal fulfillment has come home to roost as mere paganism among our people.

"We know how to preach salvation by faith, but we have not yet determined how to replace false legalisms with true piety. Young and old are more schooled in popular culture than biblical thought — that is evident in not only in our congregants' lifestyles but in their shocking lack of Biblical knowledge. Yet, before we blame others for not applying the scriptures well, we must confess that even among conservative church leaders there is little consensus regarding such culture forming issues as economics, government, education, poverty and war. The cold wash of this culture's realities are making it startlingly evident that it was far easier to talk about the uniform than it is to fight the spiritual war of the soul in today's society.

"We are beginning to think afresh about how exposition and application relate to these cultural battles for the soul. There is a healthy trickle of recent articles and books on how to do exegetically sound application. Still, much work remains to be done in order for expository preaching to move from merely creating weekly to-do lists based on our own traditions and really identifying how biblical truth applies to life's struggles."

Will 1 in 8 churches close? From PreachingNow newsletter

Thom Rainer, dean of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism and Missions at Southern Baptist Seminary, and an astute observer of the church growth scene, believes that 50,000 American churches will close by the year 2010.

In an article which originally appeared in his The Rainer Report newsletter, he noted, "Thousands of churches are on the precipice of closing. The conventional wisdom was that churches were tenaciously stubborn, and could keep going for years. But those churches were led by the Builder generation, those born before 1946. The churchgoing builders attended churches out of loyalty and tradition. They would often remain loyal to a church despite deteriorating quality and attendance.

"But Boomers, Busters/Gen Xers, and Bridgers — those born between 1977 and 1994 — have no such loyalties. They see no need to remain with a church that exists out of tradition and with little care for the quality of the ministries. . . . The fading of the Builder generation indicates the death of one out of eight churches in America today."

The big question remains: what kind of churches will close their doors over the coming decade? Most likely, they will be churches for which maintaining the status quo is the major priority.

Wow! Now how to get beyond maintaining the status quo...

Baptism + Fire - Christianity Today Magazine

God loves you and has a difficult plan for your life....
Suffering is our preparation for ministry in a world of suffering—all manner of suffering: from the trivial irritations of daily life to paralyzing accidents, from family squabbles to church splits, from the ravages of sexual slavery to the countless deaths of innocents at the hands of cruel dictators. This is not a world for shallow people with soft character. It needs tested, toughened disciples who are prepared, like their Lord, to descend into hell to redeem the lost.

Many of the difficulties that God sometimes directs and sometimes permits in our lives are not about us. God's got the whole world in his mind, and he is looking for people who are keeping that world foremost in their minds, as well.

Great article!

Brawl at church

And I thought conflict at my churches was out of control!

Religion News Blog : And on the eighth day, the Lord created spam

This disgusts me!

Doug Giles: Dirty Harry Goes To Church

Can you imagine Dirty Harry Callahan attending a highly effeminized church?

Perhaps a bit overstated but the point is clearly made!

The Jesse Tree: Celebration of Advent

I have never come across this before. It looks like a very meaningful and powerful activity for a family to do at Advent.

2005's Newest Minority - LeadershipJournal.net

Of those born after 1980, 27% claim no religion.

Let that sink in.

LeadershipJournal.net - Rabble Roused

It is the repetition of the complaining that tempts the leader to burnout.

Nice little article on complainers and the role of a pastor.

Toilet cleaning - the fastest way to the human heart

Wow! What a powerful story and an inspiring way to BE the gospel through servant evangelism.

The Moral Majority Coalition

Yikes! This stuff scares me. Jerry especially scares me!

Skip Christmas

Attention getting idea from a creative church.

I always suspected...

You Are From the Moon

You can vibe with the steady rhythms of the Moon. You're in touch with your emotions and intuition. You possess a great, unmatched imagination - and an infinite memory. Ultra-sensitive, you feel at home anywhere (or with anyone). A total healer, you light the way in the dark for many.

What Planet Are You From?

Emerging church? What's that? from Maggi Dawn

This is a question and a perspective that I have felt for sometime.

frontline: is wal-mart good for america? | PBS

Did you see this program on PBS? It was fascinating and overwhelming. I don't know even were to begin on this issue.

Beef! It's what's for dinner! And in our case after receiving a side of beef breakfast and lunch! 

Compassion International increasing help for AIDS-infected children

Compassion estimates that more than 20,000 children whom it assists in Africa are HIV-infected and tens of thousands more have a parent or sibling with the disease.

“HIV/AIDS intervention is an ongoing, natural extension of Compassion's mission to provide health-related benefits to all Compassion-assisted children,” Stafford said.

World health experts warn the problem is only growing. There are nearly 11 million AIDS orphans in Africa, and in sub-Saharan Africa, 42 million people are HIV positive. Two and a half million Africans will die this year from disease.

While Compassion has always provided medical help to the 600,000 children in its program, the latest addition calls for the use of antiretroviral drugs -- medicines that can extend the life and quality of life for a child.

Good to see Compassion responding! We sponsor two children through them and it is a great organization!

Pastors.com Article: I left Kenya asking, 'God, what can I do?'

just one of the 700 to die of AIDS, in a single day, in Kenya. That’s 4,900 a week; 21,700 a month; 252,000 a year

Horrifying statistics from Kenya. Read the article to be encouraged to get involved.

Global AIDS Prayer Partnership

Check out the Call to Prayer they are organizing on World Aids Day December 1.

Church Marketing Sucks

Good stuff. Check it out.

Radical Reformission : Reaching out without selling out

Mark Driscoll on his new book Radical Reformission:

Our lives shape, and are shaped by, the culture we live in, and the gospel must be fitted to (not altered for) particular people, times, and circumstances so that evangelism will be effective.

Great quote in a great article. He goes on and defines three tendencies in Christianity; parachurch, liberalism, and fundamentalism. Here's his great formulation for thinking about these tendencies:

Gospel + Culture - Church = Parachurch

Culture + Church - Gospel = Liberalism

Church + Gospel - Culture = Fundamentalism

Great thoughts!

My hope is built on nothing less...

I am amazed at the amount of despair I am reading on several blogs concerning the re-election of George W. Bush. Is our hope really on the government? Do we really need to rant about conservative Christians voting their moral values?

I am becoming more and more turned off to this whole blogging thing. Especially the reading of blogs part. Don't get me wrong. I have learned much and have been greatly challenged. I hope others find my blog and read it.

But I have often been admonished to spend time reading those books that are classics, that have stood the test of time. How many blog posts will stand the test of time? How many will be still read a year from now let alone 100 years from now? Honestly there are very few classics in the making either on the net or hard copy. C.S. Lewis writes,

It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

I think I need to apply this to blogs as well for the very reasons Lewis gives in the context of the statement above.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.

I am feeling the need for some clean sea breezes! Happy ranting to all you ranters out there...I'm going for a nice long walk on the beach.

Online Finger Meditation Tool

Give it a try.

Luke 20:27-38

As I study this passage in preparation for this week's sermon, I am reminded of what Dallas Willard said about Jesus in his book The Divine Conspiracy. Willard called Jesus the greatest teacher ever. Here in verse 28, the Sadducees trying to trip up Jesus call him Teacher.

Is this an image of Jesus that I hold? Do I view him or understand him as Teacher?

This led to asking Jesus questions like you would a Teacher. Teacher, is God good? Teacher, is anything certain? Teacher, how can I be a better husband, father, follower?

It is amazing how different it feels to pray like this! To pray to The Teacher, seeking his input, his truth, his wisdom on life's situations.

I liken it to seeking out a mentor, becoming an apprentice. Who would you most like to be an apprentice for? The Donald as in the show The Apprentice? Who we choose as a mentor has much to say about our values.

[Listening to: From The Beginning - Phil Keaggy]

Why Church Isn't Really a Church

The pain of all this strikes church leaders especially hard. Deep down, not one of us believes the organization we serve is a true expression of authentic Christian community. Each of us thinks, 'THIS is what Jesus gave his life for? No way!'

Good article. This has been my experience as well. The churches I lead clearly aren't true churches as we struggle to form true Christian community.

Dallas Willard
: Articles

I attended a conference this week on anti-racism/pro-reconciliation. Though the conference was offered by one of the denominations I am affliated with, we did not talk at all about spiritual formation and transformation of the heart as the most profound answer for this complex and difficult problem.

Needless to say, I was deeply disappointed. This article by Willard in which he discusses his book Renovation of the Heart, I believe hits the nail on the head.

That’s the secret of Jesus. You watch Jesus and you see he never did “withdraw” and then “attack.” All of the time people wanted him to do it and in many ways, but he would not. Then to the body of believers he said, “This will show everyone that you are my disciples, if you love one another,” but he had already said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” So that’s the model. In that sense the transformation of the social world is at its heart the transformation of personal relations. That’s the key to transforming society in the larger arena. There is no cure for the social battles that we fight in our culture–and there’s so much grief around race, gender, and so forth–until you eliminate “withdrawal” and “attack” and replace them with “acceptance” and “help.” Once you do that and not just talk about it, these other issues will fall into place quickly. They will not fall into place at all unless it is done this way.

The church truly is the hope of the world!

First time Wi-Fi

This is the first time I have ever connected by wi-fi and I am loving this! The speed is incredible and the freedom is awesome! For this rural kid, I keep thinking that I need to get one of these connections!

RUF Hymnbook Online Hymn Resource

Very nice discovery today!

.: Corvallis Gazette-Times :. Archives

The survey also found the quality of the sermon is the primary reason new people return to a church. It ranks above how friendly the church is or the 'overall worship experience.'

NFL.com - NFL Hurricane Relief Drive

Visit this page and the NFL will donate $1.00 for hurricane relief.

our back pages : christiancounterculture

Looks like a lot of good articles to read.

te deum : That Glorious Mongrel : How Jazz Can Correct the Heresy of White Christianity

I simply ask us to consider how much our white Christian worship, and our practice of faith in general, is more akin to the framing of the concert hall experience than of the jazz performance. Too often, it seems to me, our worship is oriented to the isolated individual's private relationship with God and set apart from the world around us. We order and arrange it so that worshipers are mere auditors, focused as passive and inert spectators on the preacher's words or the singer's solo performance. Jazz as a model would have us recognize the importance of everyone's participation in worship and see the constitution of a social body—not one-on-One relationships with God—as vital to Christian spiritual formation and witness.

I am a huge jazz fan having played in high school and college and this is a great article looking at how jazz can help white Christianity and its heresies. Long article but well worth the read.

ginkworld; se7en questions, ron jackson

Interview with George Barna at ginkworld.

'Breakout Churches' reveals leadership essentials

The process of moving a church from mediocrity to greatness "included more than the transformation of a church; it also included the transformation of a leader."

Bummer! So there's no slick program I can implement to help my church grow? You mean I have to grow as a pastor if I want to see transformation in my church!?

Wray routs Akron

Thomas Barnett was shocked to see the ball in his hands on the first play of the game.

Wray's 285-pound defensive lineman doesn't catch many passes, but his interception triggered a landslide against No. 4 Akron on Friday night, and Wray cruised to a 35-0 Class 1A North Central League victory at Akron Field.

Our high school football team, the Wray Eagles are 6-0 and having a lot of fun! Thomas goes to the Christian Church. Way to go Thomas!

2 Timothy 3.14-4.5 10.17.04

2 Timothy 3.14-4.5 10.17.04
Originally uploaded by hawkenstein.

Here's my mindmap for my sermon today. If you are interested, click on the image for a larger image that you can actually read!

[Listening to: Thinking Of You - Lenny Kravitz]

Well we did it! Echo was a great time with 15 to 20 people there and many asking when we are going to do it again! The coffee shop on Main Street was the perfect location. We hope that this service will reach more and more people in our community. Thanks for your prayers! 

Found this very funny sports statue of Jesus playing football with some kids! The caption is great! 

Confessing Christ in a World of Violence

Could you sign this statement?

When churches head left (10/18/04)

...but the efforts of the woeful mainline churches are better seen as classic knee-jerk leftism, an expression of hard-core loathing for the United States and the West, with Israel as a stand-in for America. The mainline churches believe they still stand for high moral purpose in politics. They don't. They can no longer be taken seriously on politics or human rights.

And the PCUSA wonders why rural America is leaving?

Building Below the Water line

Great metaphor for pastors.

Out in the sticks in October. [Listening to: Jazz Odyssey - Audio Adrenaline] 

Egg on my face : my new blog

I have finally taken the plunge on a second blog that I have be thinking about for some time.

This blog has long been in the back of my mind. Today I ran across a quote from Leith Anderson that forced me to create this blog.

Here you will find my thoughts and reflections on pastoring yoked congregations::the challenges, opportunities, frustrations, joys...everything. I have long joked about writing a book entitled: How to Pastor Yoked Congregations Without Getting Egg on Your Face! Pretty lame I know but, I've found it to be one of the bigger challenges in my current calling.

As some of you may know, I pastor two mainline congregations in rural northeastern Colorado. Both churches are under 100 people. The denominations are Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). I have served in this call for nearly two years.

I hope this blog helps other pastors who are serving in yoked congregations as well as educates others who are contemplating such a ministry.

Grace and peace,
Steve

Worldometers

Here are some interesting counters for all the statistically minded out there. Could make for fun discussion starters.

American Idols

Quote of the day:

Spiritual community is like a good marriage. It's good, but never ideal. We're getting closer to it.

Looking for answers in an ask-assertive world

Great article by Spencer Burke over at the Ooze.

Sometimes Ministry Stinks - LeadershipJournal.net

Nothing in the ministry has the power to determine the pastor's countenance. In the words of Viktor Frankl, "The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances." So why would you hand over that freedom to a bedpan? You may have to carry the smelly mess, but you don't have to let it into your soul, where attitudes are created.

Dignity in ministry is found not in the task but in the one who has called us to it. If you are clear that it is Christ who has called you to serve this church, then you are always part of a royal priesthood. But you have to choose to see that. It's the only way you can look like royalty while doing a task that just stinks.

In my years in ministry, I have found it to be true that the church attracts some odd people. But I have always worked hard to love them and to show them God's love for them through how I treat them.

Where I wrestle with this issue is when these odd people begin to suck you dry and take up lots of time and energy to minister to. How do you go about setting boundaries with them?

Though this question is beyond the scope of Barnes' article I believe it is also an important issue to consider.

Eventually the members and elders of the congregation get bugged by the problem parishioner, but it usually falls to the pastor to "do something about it."

Many times though, I have found that these odd people who bug others in the church are a wonderful opportunity to grow in their ability to love.

When I was a youth pastor I was amazed at how loving the kids could be toward difficult and odd kids. They humbled me in the love the showed to odd people. And to me, that's the church in action! So pastors, turn the tables! Encourage your people to reach out to and love the unloveables and the odd folks in your church and community. I bet God will teach everyone a lot in the process. Maybe even someone will grow spiritually!

Echo flyer

echo flyer
Originally uploaded by hawkenstein.

Here's the flyer we are putting up around town. Hopefully it will create a buzz for the service on October 17.

Organic Worship

Great worship ideas. Take a look and have fun experimenting.

Here in Wray, we are going to try to start a new service on October 17. There are a lot of people 40 and under in our town who don't go to church. It's probably because all of the churches in town are stuck in the '50's, '60's, & '70's. We hope that this service will become a community of people who seek to experience Jesus Christ in fresh, organic, alternative ways. I am nervous and excited! Nervous because nothing like this has been done here. Excited because nothing like this has been done here!

We are meeting in a cool coffee shop on Main Street. Hopefully this neutral turf will work for us. Please pray about this new ministry if you think of it!

Putting Peter Jackson in Perspective: An Interview with Greg Wright

In general, the church has a terrific theology of the written word. However, the ongoing worship-style squabble demonstrates that the church generally has an ill-defined theology of music, and the twentieth-century church has also demonstrated a schizophrenic theology of visual art. This is troubling since the art form of film combines words, music and visual elements. Segments of the church, of course, have long grasped the role of all art in ministry; but until we stop viewing film as either a tool of the enemy or merely a tool for evangelism, we will continue to be guilty of idolizing the written Gospel and demonizing that which God intended for good. That’s not a pretty scenario.

This is a great article and worth your time!

Americans favor Christian symbols, Barna says

I don't know what to think of this poll. What conclusions can we come to from these few statistics? It seems to me that cultural Christianity is widely accepted but true transformative apprenticeship to Jesus Christ is not. But I guess a poll like this helps Christians with there self-esteem. Whew! We aren't completely marginalized!

Frankly, who cares? What the church needs is transformation. What are culture needs are true apprentices of Jesus Christ, changing from the inside out, who love others.

Forget the mottos! (Hey, that could be a motto!) Start morphing. (Hey, another snappy motto! I'm on a roll!).

Sunday School Flannelgraph

Sunday School Flannelgraph
Originally uploaded by hawkenstein.

Welcome to our cutting edge, high tech Sunday School program!

I get a kick out of this each week when I see it.

U2 - Vertigo

I downloaded the new U2 single from itunes today. Great song and only .99!

Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House

Great retreat house just outside of Denver.

Tithing: What should the church teach its members about giving?

Interesting article on tithing.

Breaking the 300 Barrier

Articles like this disgust me! How is the Holy Spirit involved in church growth? You won't find any insight here just program thoughts and techniques. Yuk!

How to create a postcard newletter

Cool spin on the traditional newsletter! Great idea for churches.

BibleGateway.com

Try the new BibleGateway!

LookSmart's Furl - Your Personal Web

I received this email today and wanted to pass along this service to you. Now they are offering 5 gigs of storage! Wow!

Dear Furl Members,

Tomorrow we will be making an official announcement that Furl has been acquired. However, we wanted you to be the first to hear the news. We are joining LookSmart, a provider of Web search and research-quality articles search, in addition to other high-quality search products.

This is exciting news for several reasons. First, because LookSmart acquired Furl for the same reasons you probably use it - it is a great service that works well - and LookSmart has no intention of changing the things that make it great. On the contrary, LookSmart is committed to making existing features even more powerful.

To show how serious that commitment is, we are officially allocating 5 gigabytes (GB) of storage for each individual member's public archive, enough space to store tens of thousands of archived items.

Mile High Musings: The Party on the Side of the Road

Great idea! I hope we can pull off something like this here in Wray!

Scotsman.com News - Latest News - TV 'Priest Idol' Aims to Fill Church's Empty Pews

Yikes! I'd hate the pressure this would bring!

So, Who Owns the Sanctuary?

Don't you love denominations?

The Tension Regarding Intention : Youthworker Journal

Great article by Todd Hunter on intentional evangelism.

NarniaWeb - Your Source For Narnia Movie News

Here's information on the Narnia movie due out Christmas 2005.

Sermon mind maps

I am in the process of trying to upload my sermon mind maps to an online photo ablum. The link is included above. Once I get some of them uploaded, I'll let you know.

Test 

Nice game Q! The Broncos are looking good! If we can only keep the Snake from trying left-handed jump passes we'll be alright! 

It's All About Who, Jesus?

No doubt, much of the talk about 'emerging church' can be fit into the category of a new demographic needing everything tailored to its finicky, funky tastes. It's still all about me, just a me from a different market sector. It's as if we're asking for the set on The Truman Show to be redesigned for a newer, hipper Truman.

But if there's even a spark of something else at work in the emergent conversation, just a flicker of hope that the real God is to be found outside the dome of a narcissistic consumer religion (in any of its demographic forms), and that God is actually so wonderful that we would actually like to sing and preach about God for a while, more than ourselves, then we should fan that flame.

Great article from Brian McLaren

Reverse Mentoring

What if seasoned ministry leaders followed such an example and used reverse mentoring to gain understanding of the emerging culture? As postmodern thought continues to permeate our culture, church leaders would be wise to become fluent in the language of the emergent conversation. The best way to do this is to become a willing and intentional student of the culture, to become the humble protege instead of the mentor.

Do you know any pastors that are doing this? The article talks about the business world regularly doing this and benefiting greatly. I hope there are some pastors out there who are giving this a try.

Leadership and playing guitar

Interesting metaphor for leadership.

Exegeting images

If images are that powerful in their imprinting abilities, and if pastors are called to communicate in an "image-thinking" culture, why are we so determined to exegete words and so reluctant to exegete images?

Make you think article from Len Sweet.

The September 11 Digital Archive

Spend some time today praying for our world, President Bush, our troops, the victims, and above all peace.

Christian Book Summaries

Interesting idea. 5,000 word summaries of recent Christian books including direct quotes from the book and information about the author.

Wray Post Electronic Newspaper

I just discovered this e-newspaper covering Wray, Colorado and the surrounding areas. I had no idea someone out there was doing this so close to home! I wonder if they have stumbled upon my blog?

The Runaway Inn

My wife and I will be heading to this little inn in Joe's, Colorado next weekend to celebrate our 12 anniversary. We are really looking forward to some time away just for the two of us.

The Jesus Creed

Cool creed on Jordon Cooper's blog. Written by Brian McLaren.

On using sermon mind maps

Someone asked for help on reading the mind maps. To orient yourself to my mind maps start at the center and then work counterclockwise starting at roughly 3 o'clock. At the center of the map is the big idea of my sermon. Everything going out from that center is related to the big idea in some way whether it is explanation of the text, illustration, or application.

For me, these mind maps serve to get the sermon into my mind in a general form. I typically preach without notes or at the very least an outline. The mind map seems to work best with how my brain is wired. I can easily remember each point and what it relates to if I have taken the time to create a mind map. The little illustrations on some of them also help me remember.

If I lose my place or need a quick reminder, I have found that I can just glance at the map and find my way. Hope that helps!

More thoughts on 1 Timothy 1:12-17

I am also grateful that Jesus Christ displays the utmost patience with me. As I meditated on this verse the image that came to my mind was walking with my children. They all walk at different paces. Our youngest likes to stop and pick up everything. He takes his time. He is not in a hurry. He is far from understanding the goal of the walk...to get to where we are going. He is often distracted, often lagging behind, often in trouble, often in danger. My walk with Christ is much like this. I lag behind, I lose sight of the goal, I don't even know what the goal is many times, I am distracted, confused, in trouble, in danger. Yet Jesus paces with me, an idea that is wonderfully developed in the book, Shaping the Spiritual Life of Students by Richard R. Dunn. Jesus slows down to my speed. He comes alongside of me. The he leads me. He gently but relentlessly nudges me in the way I should go. Sometimes, he yanks me out of danger. Sometimes he walks with me through the trouble I'm in. But through all of it, he displays the utmost patience. Unlimited patience.

One thousand dead U.S. soldiers: Take it personally

Heartfelt reflection on the war in Iraq. Not sure if his conclusions are realistic (namely, how interested in peace are the Muslims?) but I definitely share his sentiments.

1 Timothy 1:12-17 reflections

I am wrestling with the "if" and the "how" of applying some of this passage. Is it appropriate for all believers to think that Jesus Christ considers us faithful? What does this expression mean? When I meditate on this verse, I must say that I find I am greatly lacking in faithfulness. Perhaps I have been a little bit faithful, but I know deep down inside that I lack in my faithfulness. I know I could be further down the path of apprenticeship to Jesus Christ. But as Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy points out quoting from William Law's book A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life,

...if you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.

Willard comments,

...it could well prove to be a major turning point in our life if we would, with Law's help, ask ourselves if we really do intend to be life students of Jesus. Do we really intend to do and be all of the high things we profess to believe in? Have we decided to do them? When did we decide it? And how did we implement that decision?

Intention and decision are absolutely fundamental in this matter of apprenticeship to Jesus...

These thoughts from Willard got me to thinking along the lines of David Allen's personal management concepts as written in his book Getting Things Done. Allen pushes the reader to define the next actions involved in getting things done. He also encourages a weekly review, a snapshot of how we are doing in getting things done, were we are in getting things done.

Can we take these concepts and use them in our spiritual lives? If the thing I desire is a dynamic relationship with Jesus, don't I have to intentionally determine what the next action is in experiencing that reality? And isn't Sunday morning and especially Communion Sundays the time for a weekly review? A time were I survey how well I am doing? A time to reflect on my life, my apprenticeship to Jesus, how well I am progressing? A time where God can point out my next actions, those things I must do or cease from doing in order to get further down the path? A time where I confess my failures from the previous week? Clearly a daily review would be most beneficial in our relationship with God! Hence many of the ancient disciplines of the church...

Please don't hear this the wrong way. I don't believe I can program my relationship with Jesus. I don't believe I am the initiator in this relationship. But if I fail to intentionally respond, if I fail to intentionally follow Jesus, I will fail as his apprentice.

Overall I take hope in this passage. Here Paul refers to himself as the worst of sinners. I know that very few of us actually believe this about ourselves. But if you stop and think...if you allow your mind to uncover the skeletons in your closet what do you find? For me, I find that I am the worst of sinners. No one could have possibly sinned worse than me! And fortunately by God's mercy you haven't found out about my sin! Fortunately by God's mercy my sin is forgiven and I am saved as Paul here states. In fact, Paul says it was for that very reason, the reason being, I am the worst sinner, that I have received mercy. If I were not the worst, if I were not a sinner, would I really need to receive mercy?

Lashed to the Mast

...the image aspects of pastoring, the parts that require meeting people's expectations, can be faked. We can impersonate a pastor without being a pastor.

A great article by Eugene Peterson on being a pastor.

Project Rebirth

Webcams capturing the rebuilding at Ground Zero. Check it out.

Forgetting God

Observing the modern world, French sociologist Jacques Ellul noted a striking trend: As the Christian gospel permeates society, it tends to produce values that, paradoxically, contradict the gospel. I sometimes test his theory while traveling overseas. I ask foreigners about the United States, the world's largest majority-Christian society.

Very interesting article worth your time and consideration.

Here's the logo for the Guitar Gods. 

The Guitar Gods

Some have been asking about my fantasy football team and how the draft went. It was a great night and we had a lot of fun talking smack and drafting our teams. I think I fared really well as I got the positions when I targeted them. Here's my team:

Roster

QB A. Brooks NO
QB C. Palmer CIN
RB K. Barlow SF
RB T. Henry BUF
RB T. Jones CHI
RB R. Anderson DAL
RB M. Pittman TB
WR T. Holt STL
WR D. Stallworth NO
WR K. Johnson DAL
WR R. Wayne IND
WR A. Lelie DEN
WR J. Galloway TB
TE T. Gonzalez KC
PK J. Feely ATL
Def Packers GB

The name of my team is the Guitar Gods. No theological significance, just a reference to my musical tastes! We'll see how the team does.

Here's my sermon map for Philemon. I realize they are hard to read. I am still working on other options like mind map software. However they are all rather expensive. Does anyone know of some inexpensive or even free mindmapping software? 

1 Timothy 1:12-17

I am experiencing this as a powerful passage this week. Through my Lectio Divina exercise, I too have experienced gratitude. Jesus Christ has given me strength at different times of my life. He strengthened me when I was between ministry positions delivering pizzas at Domino's and pulling wire in construction. He strengthens me in my current call as a small town pastor performing many ministry tasks that I was told I should avoid through "career counseling" I received in seminary. He strengthens me in my marriage, in parenting, in so many ways.

Yet there are so many times I do not avail myself to the strength he can provide.

I do not believe it to be a small coincidence that I am fasting this week as I study this passage. Fasting is a physical discipline that among other things, helps to remind us that the physical can be sustained by the spiritual. Surely the Apostle Paul had experienced this countless times in his life. Here, looking back at the years, he is able to be grateful for the many times Jesus strengthened him.

Philemon

The book of Philemon is very interesting. Right out the gate in studying this book, I have been quite perplexed by this question: Why does Paul address the letter not only to Philemon but also to Apphia, Archippus, and the church which meets in Philemon's home? Since this is a dispute between Philemon and Onesimus, why does Paul include these other people?

I ask this because whenever there is a dispute in our churches today, we tend to deal with it quietly behind closed doors. Are we too concerned with privacy? Are we too concerned with what others will think of us, especially if they disagree with us?

More than 100 killed in Russian school siege

I am so greatly grieved and troubled by this tragic attack in Russia.
Lord Jesus Christ, come quickly!

It looks like the first one worked okay. Not great but okay so I decided to try another one. 

I doubt this will be viewable. This is the mind map I used a few weeks ago for my sermon notes. I am still trying to figure out how to upload a copy so it is viewable. Thanks for your patience! 

January Trial Date Set for NHL's Bertuzzi

Just a follow up to the Steve Moore and Todd Bertuzzi incident. I haven't heard anything about how Steve Moore is doing. Maybe the Denver news will report on him this evening with the announcement of the trial date.

On hospital visits and fantasy football drafts

Today I will be traveling 2 1/2 hours to visit an elderly gentleman from one of our congregations who had hip replacement surgery. Last week he fell and broke his hip. Our small hospital can't handle these kinds of surgeries so we have to travel to a larger hospital.

Following this visit, I drive to Denver for my fantasy football leagues' draft! I am pumped!

When I finally return to Wray tomorrow, I have a funeral at 2pm. It's going to be a crazy 24 hours!

Preaching Philemon

I don't remember ever hearing a sermon on Philemon. This week, the New Testament reading from the lectionary is Philemon. This is the text that have have picked to preach on. I am looking forward to it as I believe it has many principles for mediating between injuryed parties.

Living in a small town, we tend to have our share of disagreements and arguments, even feuds. A disagreement in the city doesn't even compare. In the city you can go a long time before ever seeing the person. If you disagree with someone at church in the city many churches are large enough to allow you to avoid the person all together. If you are in an argument with the school administration in the city, your path only crosses theirs at the school meetings and appointments you have with them.

In a small town things are radically different. Arguments and disagreements no matter what the arena always find there way into the church. If people disagree about a situation in the schools, or in the government of town, or in the county decisions, these feelings bubble over into the church. Sometimes people will quit attending church because the feelings over these issues and the heat of the situation is so great.

Into this context comes the book of Philemon. Hopefully it will prove to be a fruitful week of study and exposition.

Condemnation and blame too prevalent in the emerging church discussion?

Here are some challenging thoughts from Dallas Willards' great book The Divine Conspiracy which have me wrestling with the whole tone of the discussions many blogs are involved in concerning the modern vs. the postmodern expressions of the church.

A few decades ago there emerged in American society something called the generation gap. It did not exist in the world of my youth, in the forties and fifties. It was caused by exactly what Jesus here calls our attention to: "the law of reciprocity of condemnation," we could call it. Popular arts, sexual morality or immorality, disenchantment with "the establishment," the Vietnam War, and the draft, racial segregation, the role of education in society, and other factors, were all a part of the mix.

But it really doesn't matter much now what "caused" it and who "started" it. The fact is, we are now saddled, as a people, with a conceptualization of youth against age and age against youth, of generation against generation. There is a mixture of blame, misunderstanding, mistrust, condemnation, and even shame between age groups. We now have names that more or less strongly incorporate this mixture, such as "boomers," "busters," "Xers," and so forth. And we have many other ways of clustering people into mutual condemnation groups. Heartfelt acceptance of the gospel of the Beattitudes alone can offer relief from this dreadful battle of condemnation and countercondemnation.

Powerful words to weigh as we all seek to follow Jesus more faithfully and discuss these issues for all to see.

TaraJosh.com

I recently learned that Josh was the youth pastor at a friend's church in Highlands Ranch, Colorado called Summit Community. I saw the news report on them but had no idea that they were connected to my friends church. It is a truly remarkable story of hope and love.

Wrestling with an aborted conscience

This is a very interesting article about abortion.

Regent Radio :: Audio by Eugene Peterson, Gordon Fee, N.T. Wright and many more...

Wow! Cool resource I discovered via Prodigal Kiwi's blog.

Sermon research team

I am very intrigued by the thoughts in this article by Rick Warren. Overall, I would love to be able to have weekly interaction with other pastors concerning my sermons. Unfortunately I don't know if the pastors here would be interested.

Teach Doctrinal Truth by Storytelling

Ministers wanting to shape important doctrinal understandings and education in people's lives today must become good storytellers, says Rick Durst, dean at Golden Gate Seminary near San Francisco.

Nice article on storytelling and preaching.

Bible study mind maps

I have only recently been exposed to the concept of mind maps. I have found it to be a great tool in my note taking and organizing information. Clearly I am a visual person. Now I am experimenting with mind maps for the biblical passages that I am studying for my teaching and preaching. If I can figure out how to load them on the site in a way that others can read them I will.

Last Sunday I preached with my only notes being a mind map of my sermon. It was very helpful and I plan to continue using this method for the near future. I plan to upload some of my sermon mind maps as well, once I figure out how to do it.

God is not a republican. Or a democrat.

This is a very funny (and pointed) animated video attacking the Religious Right's lobby for George W. Bush in the upcoming election. Great stuff! Enjoy!

Religion Experts Ask How Jesus Would Vote

I found this article via Mile High Musings:

In fact, Jesus might not support Bush or Kerry — or anyone else, for that matter.

"Jesus was not one to take sides on political issues," said Derek Davis, director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University in Waco.

While there were obviously no Democrats or Republicans during the time of Jesus, different groups vied for attention, including the fundamentalist Pharisees, the aristocratic Sadducees, the spiritually devout Essenes and the revolutionist Zealots.

"Interestingly, Jesus never sided with any of these groups but remained above such earthly disputes," Davis said. "This does not mean we should do the same. He was God. We are mere humans."

Now I feel even better about being an independent! (Plus I don't have to bother with the phone calls soliciting money!).

We are on vacation so the writing is a little behind this week. I'll probably return with a vengence next week!

Wal-Mart churches spring up in rural areas

...Farley said rural churches need to face reality, particularly the expectation that they should have a full-time pastor.

Fifty years ago this model was emphasized so strongly in the SBC that many people treat a bivocational pastor as a step backward, he said.

But Farley recommended churches reevaluate their ministry and accept their capabilities and limitations. The other step he suggested is finding a niche and doing it well.

"I tell rural churches all the time to find themselves a signature ministry," Farley said. "Don't try to compete with these big, emerging churches. Find something you do well that will draw people who need the ministry or want to do it, such as music or ministry to an age segment."

"I know one rural church with 75 to 80 in Sunday school and they take 30 to 40 people on a mission trip every year. If a church can find something to get excited about, it will revitalize them and they'll do well. That's the future of the rural church."

To survive, existing rural churches need strong pastoral leadership and a willingness to reach out and serve their communities, said Harris, who accepted Jesus as his personal Savior at a rural SBC church in southeastern Kentucky.

"If they stay like they've been, they're going to die," the NAMB official said. "There's a new kind of rural church needed that is more ministry -- than program-driven. People are hungry (and) homeless. There are unwed mothers. I haven't been in an area where churches couldn't grow if they looked around at the needs."

Randy Jones, director of missions for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, said that rural churches can be revitalized and turned into missions-minded, growing assemblies. But it requires committing to a minimum five-year process and realizing that some who don't like change will leave, he said.

Excellent thoughts on the rural church.

Yikes!

Leadership Summit 2005

Leadership Summit 2005
I attended this conference last week via satelitte. It was a powerful and well done conference. Due to working in a rural church, many of the concept are difficult to apply and most of them need to be contextualized.

Bill Hybel's sessions were fantastic! It was such a shot in the arm to keep pressing on, keep going forward, and be faithful to the ministry God has called me to.

If you get a chance to attend this conference, I would highly recommend it!

Sermon on Hosea 1:2-10

Here's the text from the Hosea sermon. Sorry it's taken awhile to get online. I decided to place it on Sermoncentral and link to it from here so more people would come across it.

A young couple were on their way to get married when they had a tragic accident. The next thing they knew, they were standing arm-in-arm at the pearly gates. They told St. Peter what had happened and then said, "We really want to spend eternity as man and wife. Is there anyone here who can marry us before we go in?" Peter thought for a minute and said, "This is an unusual request, but if you’ll take a seat, I’ll see what I can work out." The couple waited for three months before St. Peter finally came back with a minister to perform the ceremony. The man said to Peter, "We’ve had some time to think about this. We know that marriage is difficult even under the limited term of ’till death us do part.’ Since there is no death in heaven, I just want to make sure that if this marriage doesn’t work out, can we get a divorce?" Peter said, "Are you kidding? It took me three months just to find a preacher. What do you think your chances are of finding a lawyer?"

This is a funny story that highlights a difficult truth: marriage is hard. How many marriages are you personally aware of that have ended in divorce? Divorce is rampant in our society. It is so common that there is even a magazine dedicated to it called appropriately “Divorce Magazine”. Some statistical reports show the divorce rate near 50% in the U.S. Some argue that it is even higher!

Yet in spite of these statistics people are getting married. And summertime is the most popular time for weddings. This year I will officiate many weddings. Weddings are exciting and fun celebrations...

Read entire sermon

Pastors.com Article: The Next Christendom: shifting center of Christianity

Here are some excellent thoughts on the "Third Church" from Philip Jenkins...

Jenkins foresees the two faiths continuing to clash, yet he believes Christianity will leave the greatest mark on the next century.

The reason? Islam demands all people learn Arabic to read their holy book. Christianity translates the Bible into the language of all people. By doing so it encourages literacy and adapts to new conditions and places.

“And,” Jenkins says, “when people read for the first time, it probably gives them a great deal more self-confidence … and that tends to spill into political and social matters.”

Yet the Christianity of the Third World is different than that of the Northern Hemisphere. It is much more conservative and traditional -- especially among Roman Catholics. The biggest difference between the two churches is the poverty of the South.

In an interview with Atlantic Unbound -- the online edition of Atlantic Monthly -- Jenkins said, “You’re dealing with people [in the global South] who are not the world’s fat cats. That means they tend to relate much more closely to the biblical world and its concerns than do people who are rich and from their First World. Often they’re people without access to the kind of medical care that the First World takes for granted, so the medical, healing and exorcism elements of the Bible make very good sense to them.”

Jenkins saw the difference between the old Christianity of the North and West with the new of the South and East in a recent visit to Amsterdam. As he traveled through the city on a Sunday morning he found nothing which could be called church life. It was a day like any other day. Churches for the most part sat empty.

When he moved to the poorer suburbs, he found an entirely different picture. African immigrants -- many of whom had ancestors whose first contact with the Gospel came through Dutch missionaries -- were crowded into churches. “Seeing these Africans who are clearly not the world’s richest people, but who are very sober, respectable folk, you think, ‘Well, that’s the future of Christianity,’” Jenkins told Atlantic Unbound.

One thought that comes to my mind is an article I read in the latest edition of The Layman were the outgoing moderator for the PCUSA said that the Third Church are in their adolescence and they are learning and becoming more mature. Her comments were spoken in relation to the issue of homosexuality in the church. Those in the Third Church especially Dr. David F. Githii, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, have taken great exception to this comment and so do I.

In fact, this comment smacks of self-righteousness and judgment. Why do we believe that a greater "sophistication" on issues concerning sexuality is the mark of a more mature church? If I remember right, this isn't Jesus' standard.

the GATHERING and elsewhere: Emerging Church

We agreed that contemporary culture was seeking the following things as part of their spiritual search.

A sense of unity
Shared experience
Participation
Freedom
Being in a large group/community
The display of emotions is acceptable
Truth
"You have to experience it"
A yearning for Eden
Common purpose
Energy
Enjoyment
The importance of experience
Presence / intimacy
Something ethereal
Free will and choice
Its okay to be searching
A suspicion of control
A desire for personal responsibility (you have to find out for yourself)

Interesting thoughts! These ideas were gleaned from several pop culture sources.

The Comeback Kid: John Elway

This is the day all Broncos fans have been waiting for! John Elway is going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame today! He may not have been the greatest quarterback but he was the most entertaining! Elway is the first Bronco to ever be inducted.

8 days, 2 weddings, 2 funerals, 2 sermons

It has been a marathon week! Today, I will officiate the 2nd funeral this week and then cram some work in on my sermon from Hebrews 11.

The woman that died this past week joined the Christian Church in 1954. No one at the church can remember her ever coming! In 50 years no one can remember her attending! Wow! Of course, this will not be mentioned at the funeral.

Now I know that church is not the end all or be all of the Christian life. I know that we are saved by grace not by going to church. But to completely forsake the gathering of the body of Christ is totally counter to what I believe Jesus desires for us.

Furthermore, I am becoming more and more convinced as I read The Divine Conspiracy, that salvation is more than just believing the right theory concerning the atonement. Salvation is relationship. Salvation is transformation. How is transformation demonstrated, how is relationship demonstrated in someone's life if they fail to become a part of the community of believers? Should not our relationship with Christ transform us, transform our priorities, transform how we spend our time?

Yet the focus for so many people at a funeral is whether or not they believed the right thing. Few ask if they were transformed. Fewer still offer evidence that they were transformed. I hope that at my funeral there will be much talk about how God transformed me, changed me, how I was passionately in love with Jesus Christ. I hope it's not an exposition of what I believed. Who cares what you believe if it doesn't change you!

[Listening to: Comfortable - John Mayer - Inside Wants Out [EP] (5:00)]

Event Announcement: Missional Church Forum

From Allelon:

SEPTEMBER 2 - 4, 2004

THE CONVERSATION WILL BE FACILITATED BY
Alan Roxburgh, George Hunsberger, Todd Hunter, Mark Priddy, Gary Waller & Others

LOCATION: Eagle, Idaho

You are invited to explore new forms of the church with other people who care about beginning new churches andfindingfaithfulwaysforthemtolive.

The North American church is living in an alien context. Once the church was the center of community life, but now the church has been relegated to the margins of society. This time of change requires new, adaptive skills and leadership. Due to a series of critical factors we find ourselves in a place for which we are unprepared and in which many of our assumed skills and frameworks lead us in the wrong direction.

Missional Church Forum provides you an opportunity to examine situations you share in common with other leaders who, like you, live in them daily. It will provide opportunity for discussion around several key missional themes. Facilitators will be present to stimulate thinking along these missional lines. Time will be given for roundtable discussions by conference participants in order to help clarify and strategize for these challenging times.

SOME KEY IDEAS FOR THE CONVERSATION:

1. What does it mean to be missional?
2. How does the church hear the voice of God?
3. How do I help an existing church to begin to think missionally?
4. How do we impact the consumerism of our culture?
5. What does it mean to participate in the Kingdom of God?
6. How does the gospel speak to our culture?
7. What does leadership look like in a missional context?
8. What skills do I need to possess? How do leaders become cultivators of communities?
9. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of ordinary men and women within congregations/communities?

HELP SHAPE THE EVENT
You can help shape the event by taking the polls at http://www.allelon.org/polls. The information will be used to help facilitate the needs for the direction of the conversation.

If you need more information you can email office@allelon.org or call the office 1.208.947.1609

If you have received this email by mistake or no longer want to get the network update you can change your email preferences here
or send an email to ADMIN

ALLELON
PO Box 639
Eagle, ID 83616
USA

Phone: 1.208.947.1609
Fax: 1.208.947.1610

FINALLY!

I was finally able to post today! My internet service provider out here in the sticks is just not working for some reason. I connected through an AOL trial and was able to post right away. Hopefully things will get sorted out and I'll be able to post through my ISP soon.

Anger or Dallas Willard is the man!

I am slowly working my way through Dallas Willard's excellent book, The Divine Conspiracy. It is a great book that I have been living with for a while, challenging me in many ways. The book is a powerful exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount. Here's a quote from his discussion on Jesus teaching concerning anger in Matthew 5:

The first illustration of kingdom dikaiosune (righteousness) is drawn from cases in which we are displeased with our "brother" and may allow ourselves to treat him with anger or contempt.

When we trace wrongdoing back to its roots in the human heart, we find that in the overwhelming number of cases it involves some form of anger. Close beside anger you will find its twin brother, contempt. Jesus' understanding of them and their role in life becomes the basis of his strategy for establishing kingdom goodness. It is the elimination of anger and contempt that he presents as the first and fundamental step toward the rightness of the kingdom heart.

The emphasis is mine because I find it amazing to think that the elimination of anger and contempt is fundamental, elementary to my spiritual life. Yet how many times have I heard this proclaimed? How many times have I been challenged to eliminate the anger in my life?

To this end, I am experimenting with a couple of new spiritual discipline tool idea thingys. I'm calling them "anger mapping" and "contempt mapping". As spiritual mapping has become popular among church planters and missiologists, I think anger mapping could reveal a powerful picture of particular geographical locations and the abstract relationships of those in a particular community.

I think it would look a lot like a mind map at first but could probably be overlayed a geographical area to demonstrate strained relationships and the "anger terrain". I'll be experimenting with this as I get a chance. What do you think?

THE MEATRIX

This is a very creative short animation lobbying against corporate farms. It's rather timely in light of the recent developments in the animal cruelty legal battle between PETA and KFC.

Vacation

I was on vacation most of this week and since I have been home I have been attending to cleaning and putting away our camping gear and officiating two weddings, and preparing for a funeral on Tuesday, not to mention this mornings sermon. Yikes. I'll post the Hosea 1 sermon soon, Lord willing.

Evil Empire

In rural areas focused denominational interests are becoming more and more a hindrance to the furtherance of the Kingdom.

This sounds like the Presbytery's Committee on Ministry! I know this is an overstatement in this article. But there definitely have been times that the denomination gets in the way. Especially between the pastors in town.

Being a denominational mut, I don't get it. I don't understand the blind loyalty to a particular stripe of Christian.

Missional rural churches

This author believes that out of the culture of the post-industrial era a new rural and Christian community could arise, from which a new authentic rural culture could be regenerated. This then is the call - to return to a model of apostolic times when the church formed strong local entities that nurtured the people to reach out to a hostile environment. The challenge is to find an appropriate way of communicating "the Gospel" to this new culture - even as it forms. And so the future mission of the rural church is "stretched between a great vision of the past and a new vision not yet fully formed." Midwives are needed to help a new church emerge.

The question in my mind is whether or not the existing churches can become this or if we need new churches to do this, especially in rural areas. But who wants to be a church planter in rural areas?

Even as a called pastor it has been very difficult to break into the community. I am and always will be viewed as an outsider. I can't imagine what a church planter would experience.

Plowing hard ground

Ray Simpson wrote that "the ground is so hard, and the people so pagan, that perhaps nothing less than a community of love in action will suffice to transplant the Body - the Life - of Christ."

They will know we are Christians by our love. The trouble is this is rarely the case. I know that in my two churches there are terrible feelings of hatred and animosity between people. We even have a lawsuit between two parties! The ground is not only hard outside of the church but inside as well.

This statement is so neat and clean. So easy to say. But how do you create a community of love in action? Especially in a community were people have known one another's families for generations and have handed down prejudices against one another?

Reinvention of the church

Here's a great quote from the article on transforming the rural church. I think it applies to churches across the board.

Loren Mead opines that there is "a call to something genuinely new ... our task is no less than the reinvention of the church."

Towards A Transformed Rural Church And Community

If by church we mean a community of believers, there is every reason to expect that the rural churches will be with us for a very long time. If, on the other hand we view churches as institutions within the local community, the question of their survival in the rural communities is less certain ...

Rural communities tend to be small and built on cooperation. According to Shannon Jung, "given the pressures on small communities from the outside world, congregations that squander precious resources on simply keeping a building open, instead of pooling resources, are sinful." The reality might well be that rural poverty will eventually force churches to work together to survive. It is now recognized that the days are gone where everyone was assumed to be a Christian and church member. Yet this assumption lives on in the "status quo," making new initiatives very difficult, if not seemingly impossible.

The challenge of advancing God's Kingdom in the rural church. I have been amazed at the desire to hang on to the good old days, the desire to return to the programs that worked in the past. But this article nails it on the head in rural churches...we must boldly work against the status quo.

If your church experience consists of "but we've always done it that way" kind of people read this article.

Sermon on Hosea

I've been asked to post my sermon on Hosea 1. I will try to get this posted later in the week. I have been thinking about posting my sermons for sometime. Part of the problem for me is that I don't always have a completed manuscript to post. I also preach my sermons twice and they tend to emphasize different things at the different churches. It's weird how the Holy Spirit prompts me to say certain things at one church and not the other (at least I trust it's the Holy Spirit!). As soon as I can record in manuscript form the message from this past Sunday I will post it.

Hosea and the Emerging Church

In continuing to prepare my message for Sunday on Hosea 1:2-10 (really all of chapter 1), I came across this in Gary Smith's NIV Application Commentary on Hosea/Amos/Micah. See if this resonants with you as it did me:

...one can begin to suggest areas where the theological message of Hosea relates to theological issues the church has struggled with in every era of its existence. If one views Baalism as a cultural expression of a Canaanite religious worldview, the true comparison for modern application is not limited to situations where pagans are worshiping idols in India or involved in some perverted sexual cult in some faraway country. The Canaanite culture needs to be copmared to the British culture, the Hutu culture, the American culture, or the Brazilian culture.

Each of these countries has a popular "religious" philosophy of life that explains how the world works. Each culture includes ethical standards for appropriate conduct, ecomonic ways of gaining prosperity (fertility in ancient Near Eastern terminology), and an explanation of how people are related to the divine powers. The questions that the church in every culture must ask are similar to the questions Hosea raises. Are the people who claim to be believers actually the people of God, or have they so accepted the popular religious culture of their day that they, like Israel, are "not my people"? Has the syncretism of the church with modern religious culture so infiltrated the fiber of the fellowship that people can no longer see a distinction between the two? Has the church lost its identity by compromising its beliefs and accepting the moral standards of the society that the church was supposed to transform?

Some in the emerging church discussion are asking very smiliar questions to Hosea! I meet for prayer with several lol's (little old ladies) once a month on Tuesdays. My faith and their faith are in very different places. My beliefs and their beliefs are very different. Much of their thinking and prayers are based on a popular religious philosophy of how to get ahead in life and how God interacts with us. Very little of it is shaped by Scripture especially not Hosea! Please know I love and care for each of them greatly! Yet they fail to recognize how much the American popular religious philosohpy has influenced their lives.

And quite frankly, it is unappealing to me and to many "natives" in today's culture!

Microscopic Model of Sydney Opera House

Yahoo! News - World Photos - AP This is truly amazing! As they have been saying the next big thing is small.

Three great kids I can't afford! Three great kids you couldn't pay me enough for!

Owning Up to Abortion

The New York Times > Opinion > Guest Columnist: Owning Up to Abortion. Here's a disturbing quote from this column:

Honesty begins at home, so I should acknowledge that I had two abortions during my all-too-fertile years. You can call me a bad woman, but not a bad mother. I was a dollar-a-word freelancer and my husband a warehouse worker, so it was all we could do to support the existing children at a grubby lower-middle-class level. And when it comes to my children - the actual extrauterine ones, that is - I was, and remain, a lioness.

This statement strikes me as terribly sad. Actually terribly sad doesn't even begin to relate how I feel. It is a terribly sad day when our economic status determines whether we will carry through a pregnancy or not.

No wonder God spends so much time in Scripture talking about money. He is concerned about it because we are concerned about it. If God can't transform our relationship with money, it's doubtful he can transform us in any arena.

My wife and I had our first child when I was in seminary. We struggled mightily to make ends meet. Then 16 months later we had our second after I had graduated from seminary and while I was underemployed looking for a calling. We didn't have insurance. We were scrapping by. But it never crossed our minds that we should have an abortion because we couldn't afford our child.

We now have three kids, we get by on one income, and my future earning prospects are modest. (You don't enter the ministry to get rich!) In fact, by this writer's standards, we probably earn a "grubby lower-middle-class" income.

I guess it comes down to trust and faith. Do you trust God or do you trust yourself and the dollar to provide for you? It's also a question of sacrifice. Are you willing to sacrifice some financially in order to bring children into the world?

Finally, I don't understand why this writer didn't decide to give these babies up for adoption. There are so many people who want to have children but can't. There are so many wonderful homes where a child would be welcomed.

Wired News: Duke Gives IPods to Freshmen

Wired News: Duke Gives IPods to Freshmen:

Duke University will give each of its 1,650 incoming freshmen a free iPod this fall as part of an initiative to foster innovative uses of technology in the classroom

Wow! Just another reason to go to Duke! This is also more evidence of just how much technology is changing the way we interact with our world. By the time my kids get to college (in another 12 years or so) what will technology be like then? What will learning look like?

With this shift in mind, how should the church change? I pastor two churches full of immigrants who want to preserve the immigrant mindset. But clearly change is happening and natives will thrive in the new emerging culture. Immigrant churches are already stagnant and will continue to decline if they are unable to rethink ministry and mission and retool to reach natives.

If you aren't familiar with the terms "immigrant" and "natives" check out this interview with Len Sweet.

Who Wants to Marry a Prostitute?

The book of Hosea fascinates me. This week, following the lectionary, I am preaching Hosea 1:2-10. It is a troubling passage in many respects. God commands Hosea to take a prostitute for a wife. Why would God do this to Hosea? Can you imagine the humiliation he must have felt in doing this? Can you imagine the risk this entailed for him and his children?

Think how many in the church would respond today if someone in our midst believed that God had called them to marry a morally questionable young woman let alone a prostitute. Wouldn't we doubt God had spoken to them? Wouldn't we challenge this notion? In fact, it appears that in regards to Hosea and I would argue many other prominent people in Scripture, that God violates the first spiritual law:

God LOVES you and offers a wonderful PLAN for your life.

I doubt Dr. Bill Bright had marrying a prostitute in mind as part of God's wonderful plan for anyone's life. Yet that is exactly the plan God had for Hosea's life. This is just one of the problems with reductionist thinking. We want to boil down the gospel in four spiritual laws, pithy statements that summarize our core beliefs concerning God and our relationship to him. Yet Hosea's understanding of God and his relationship to God was a tad bit more complex then a set of spiritual laws.

Hosea may have given rise to the entire reality TV genre. The original show was, "Who Wants to Marry a Prostitute?"

Bless This House?

LeadershipJournal.net - Bless This House?:

Could it be that the church is as it is in so many places not because of a lack of effort or a lack of sincerity or a lack of spirituality (or even a lack of money, commitment, or prayer), but rather because our sincere efforts, passionate prayers, and material resources are all aimed in the wrong direction—the direction of self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, self-improvement?

Some interesting thoughts from Brian McLaren. I know that for my two, small rural churches it's easy to focus on self-preservation, namely survival. It is often very difficult to get folks thinking in terms of mission here. But if what Brian suggests is true, that's the best thing we could do out here in the sticks:

How ironic if the church were to find life by losing it, by giving it away.

Declining Rural Communities

Great Plains: Rural Communities

Rural dwellers are now prepared to go to the larger centres to obtain the services desired and in the process bypass the local centres, eventually leading to the demise of the latter. Thus while these local centres have suffered the major centres have expanded.

Read Wal-Mart. We live 90 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart and yet we find ourselves making the trip 2 to 3 times a month. Prices are so much more reasonable, the selection is much greater, and the quality (especially of produce) is far superior to our little local grocery store.

Future Church: Ministry in a Post-Seeker Age

Amazon.com: Books: Future Church: Ministry in a Post-Seeker Age
This looks like an interesting book. Has anyone read it?

Weblog: Federal Marriage Amendment Doesn't Even Make It To a Senate Vote - Christianity Today Magazine

Weblog: Federal Marriage Amendment Doesn't Even Make It To a Senate Vote - Christianity Today Magazine
I guess I'm not terribly surprised. I am still trying to sort out how I feel about this issue. I am not terribly concerned with the government defining what marriage is or isn't. According to James Dobson, in an interview, he argues that "the legalization of homosexual marriage will quickly destroy the traditional family." Dobson sites evidence from "Scandinavian countries" that

when the State sanctions homosexual relationships and gives them its blessing, the younger generation becomes confused about sexual identity and quickly loses its understanding of lifelong commitments, emotional bonding, sexual purity, the role of children in a family, and from a spiritual perspective, the "sanctity" of marriage. Marriage is reduced to something of a partnership that provides attractive benefits and sexual convenience, but cannot offer the intimacy described in Genesis. Cohabitation and short-term relationships are the inevitable result. Ask the Norwegians, the Swedes, and the people from the Netherlands. That is exactly what is happening there.

But doesn't this sound a lot like the state of marriage here in America?

Next Dobson argues for a slippery slope, that "the introduction of legalized gay marriages will lead inexorably to polygamy and other alternatives to one man/one woman unions." Yet the legalization of polygamy for generations as described in the Bible didn't destroy the "traditional family". How quickly we forget that the heroes of the faith had a very different understanding of what a traditional family was. Abraham, Esau, Jacob, Gideon, David, Solomon, and Hosea all practiced polygamy and yet the Judeo-Christian ethic of monogamy came from this polygamist heritage.

Finally, Dobson argues,

With marriage as we know it gone, everyone would enjoy all the legal benefits of marriage (custody rights, tax-free inheritance, joint ownership of property, health care and spousal citizenship, and much more) without limiting the number of partners or their gender.

Though he overstates the number of partners based on his slippery slope argument, I find it difficult to object to giving these rights to homosexuals. Homosexual couples can already adopt children, so custody rights should naturally follow. I don't really care about tax-free inheritance, joint ownership of property, and spousal citizenship. Health care would seem to fall into the relm of social justice. Who doesn't need health care today and who couldn't stand to have better health care?

Is this really what's at stake? If it is, we've already lost the most profound portions of this battle.

Business Copycatting the Church @ e-Church.com

Business Copycatting the Church @ e-Church.com: I guess the church isn't the only organization with something to sell! Yikes.

Dr. Danny Carroll article on Society of Biblical Literature

Society of Biblical Literature:

This group of scholars tends to be members of the Fraternidad Teologica Latinoamericana (FTL), an association of a broadly evangelical persuasion that was founded in 1970 with the express purpose of reflecting upon the Bible in light of the needs of the continent. On the one hand, they were frustrated by the failure of more traditional evangelical circles to respond adequately to those realities; at the same time, their interaction with liberationist scholarship stimulated them to look at the biblical text through a more contextualized lens.

Here is a great article from a great professor, Dr. Danny Carroll at Denver Seminary. Dr. Carroll wrestles with contextualized readings of the Bible. If you are not familiar with his work, I'd encourage you to check it out. Here's more from the article, the first part from the text of the article and the second from a footnote related to the clipped text.

Sometimes formal academic training dichotomizes exegesis and contextualization; some believe that such a combination diminishes their academic standing, especially in the academic guild beyond the continent; [4] and, to be honest, others are themselves detached from the warp and woof of their context and thus to incorporate those concerns is not a natural move.
[4] In my own experience I have sometimes found that First World scholars have not taken work from the Two-Thirds, or Majority, World seriously. In various ways they have communicated that, whereas those approaches might be "interesting," "real academic study" is done in North America and Europe according to more traditional methods. I have had students from the Two-Thirds World, who are studying in the West, confide in me how they have been discouraged from relating their research to their home context and have been told to "just deal with the text."

I believe that the emerging church in many respects is seeking to do contextualized readings of the biblical text. The emerging church in many respects is "doing theology" as the liberationist scholars often put it.

Obviously from the footnote and from my experience, many evangelicals are uncomfortable with this practice. The idea of "just deal with the text" is in many ways a western modern notion in which the text is seen as the subject of objective scientific inquiry. However, this is impossible. We all arrive at the text with many biases and our interpretation of any given text is greatly shaped by these biases. I believe that we will continue to see more untraditional methods employed in the study of Scripture in the years to come. And I believe that these methods will prove to be very beneficial.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: AP - U.S.: Catholic Church urged to draw on laity

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: AP - U.S.: Catholic Church urged to draw on laity:

Roman Catholic officials need to look to the laity for many parts of the church's mission that historically have been dominated by priests and nuns

Wow, is the priesthood of all believers even going to apply to the Catholic church? It is amazing what necessity will do to a church...

Bishop William B. Friend of the Diocese of Shreveport, La., said there used to be large numbers of people taking holy orders, enough that Catholic schools and hospitals once were heavily staffed with nuns working as teachers and nurses.

"Now their numbers have diminished. But the good news is there are large numbers of young lay people" who are interested in helping the church, Friend said.

Makes you wonder if they would be considering help from lay people if there wasn't a shortage.

As a pastor, I am always trying to help my congregations understand that they are the ministers. They do the ministry.